The Cerrado is a vast tropical savanna biome covering about 2 million square kilometers of central Brazil, roughly 21% of the country’s territory. It is one of the most biodiverse savannas on Earth and plays a critical role in South America’s water supply, yet it has lost more native vegetation to agriculture than the Amazon rainforest.
Location and Landscape
Stretching across Brazil’s central highlands, the Cerrado spans parts of more than a dozen states, from the southern edge of the Amazon basin down through the interior plateau. The landscape isn’t a single uniform grassland. It shifts between open grasslands, scattered shrublands, dense woodlands, and gallery forests along rivers. Some areas look like African savanna with widely spaced trees and golden grasses. Others resemble dry forest with a closed canopy. This patchwork of vegetation types is one reason the biome supports so many species.
The climate is strongly seasonal. Most of the Cerrado receives its rain between October and March, followed by a pronounced dry season that can last four to five months. Annual rainfall varies across the biome, from around 1,000 millimeters in the drier eastern strip to higher amounts in the south, where seasons are less extreme. Temperatures stay warm year-round, typically between 22°C and 27°C on average.
Brazil’s “Water Tank”
The Cerrado is sometimes called the cradle of Brazil’s waters. Eight of the country’s 12 major river basins originate here, connecting the Amazon to the north, the Caatinga (a semi-arid region) to the northeast, the Pantanal wetlands to the southwest, and the Atlantic Forest along the coast. This single biome feeds freshwater to an enormous portion of the continent.
What makes this possible is what lies underground. Cerrado trees and shrubs grow remarkably deep root systems, sometimes reaching 10 meters or more into the soil. These roots absorb and store rainwater during the wet season, then slowly release it into thousands of springs throughout the dry months. The biome acts like a giant sponge, recharging aquifers that keep rivers flowing even when it hasn’t rained in weeks. When native vegetation is cleared, the soil compacts and erodes, losing its ability to retain water. That damage ripples outward to rivers and communities far beyond the Cerrado itself.
The “Upside-Down Forest”
At first glance, the Cerrado can look sparse compared to a tropical rainforest. The trees are shorter, often twisted, with thick corky bark. But this appearance is deceiving. More than 40% of the biome’s total biomass and carbon stocks are located underground, stored in massive root networks. Researchers sometimes call it an “inverted forest” because there is more living plant material below the surface than above it.
This underground architecture is an adaptation to two defining pressures: poor soil and fire. Cerrado soils are ancient, highly acidic, and low in nutrients. The deep roots allow plants to access water and minerals that shallow-rooted species cannot reach. At the same time, fire has swept through the Cerrado for millennia during the dry season. Many plants have evolved thick, fire-resistant bark, underground storage organs, and the ability to resprout quickly from their roots after burning. Fire actually helps maintain the savanna’s open structure. When fire frequency increases significantly, though, it tips the balance: tree populations decline and fire-adapted grasses take over, simplifying the ecosystem.
Agricultural Transformation
The Cerrado’s flat terrain and seasonal rainfall made it a target for large-scale farming starting in the 1970s, when new agricultural techniques allowed farmers to correct the acidic soil with lime and fertilizer. The transformation was dramatic. By 2006, Brazil had become the world’s second-largest soybean producer after the United States, and 49% of that production came from the Cerrado. The biome now accounts for a major share of Brazil’s cattle ranching as well. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has identified the Cerrado as the key region driving past and likely future growth in Brazilian farm output.
This agricultural boom came at a steep ecological cost. The most active deforestation front today is in a region called Matopiba, where the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia meet in the Cerrado’s northern reaches. In the most recent monitoring period, 77.9% of Cerrado deforestation occurred in these four states alone. The Brazilian government reported 7,235 square kilometers of Cerrado cleared between August 2024 and July 2025, though this represented an 11.49% decline from the previous year, marking two consecutive years of decreasing deforestation after five years of increases.
Why Conservation Lags Behind
The Cerrado receives far less legal protection than the Amazon. Under Brazil’s Forest Code, private landowners in the Amazon must keep 80% of their property under native vegetation. In the Cerrado, that requirement drops to just 20 to 35%. This gap reflects a longstanding perception that savannas are less ecologically valuable than rainforests, a view that conservation scientists have increasingly challenged.
The biome qualifies as a global biodiversity hotspot, meaning it holds exceptional concentrations of species found nowhere else while simultaneously facing severe habitat loss. Yet because so much of the Cerrado sits on private land designated for agriculture, the legal tools available to protect it are weaker. Public awareness has also lagged. Conservation campaigns like WWF’s “Cerrado, Heart of the Waters” have tried to shift the narrative by emphasizing the biome’s role in water security for tens of millions of Brazilians, framing it not as empty grassland but as infrastructure that keeps the country’s rivers running.
Biodiversity in the Cerrado
The Cerrado is home to more than 12,000 plant species, with roughly a third found nowhere else on the planet. Its animal diversity is equally striking, supporting hundreds of species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Iconic species include the maned wolf, giant anteater, giant armadillo, and the hyacinth macaw, the world’s largest parrot. Many of these species depend on the Cerrado’s specific mosaic of habitats, moving between open grassland, shrubby areas, and forested riverbanks throughout the year.
The biome also supports numerous indigenous groups and traditional communities who have lived in the Cerrado for generations, relying on its native fruits, medicinal plants, and seasonal rhythms. These communities have developed sophisticated land management practices, including controlled burning that mirrors the biome’s natural fire cycles. Their presence and knowledge are increasingly recognized as central to any realistic conservation strategy for the region.